Across the Cameroons: A Story of War and Adventure

Presently they climbed the lower slopes of the mountains, where the country was much intersected by strips of forest and dried-up watercourses, with here and there a patch of sand-a kind of offshoot of the desert. There was no longer any trail to follow.

The Black Dog had chosen his way with sagacity, walking upon stony ground, where his sandals left no marks. For all that both Cortes and Fernando were confident that they would overtake him. However, to make the more sure of their victim, they decided to divide their forces, Harry and the elder man going one way, and Jim and Cortes another.

Late that afternoon, Harry and his companion had attained a great height on the ridge of the mountains. Before them extended a great valley, and it was on the other side of this that they beheld a white figure moving rapidly from rock to rock, bearing steadily towards the east.

The guide lifted his rifle and fired in the air.

"That is to warn my brother," said he. "He will know the signal. This time it is you and I who lead the chase."

He set off running down the mountain-side, springing from boulder to boulder. There was no foot-path, and the way was almost precipitous; but the man, though not so sure of foot as his brother, was as agile as a panther. In fact, it was as much as Harry could do to keep up with him. The half-caste was all impatience to overtake the fugitive.

The sheikh was no longer in sight, nor was there any sign of Jim and the younger guide, when the sun sank beyond the mountains, and the shadows of night crept into the valleys with the mists. For all that, Fernando held upon his way until long after dark, until at last Harry was obliged to call upon him to halt. The boy was utterly exhausted. Since daybreak that morning they had travelled without a halt, and must have covered nearly forty miles, over country that was rugged, wild, and pathless.

The guide agreed to halt, but would permit no fire. Harry appeased his appetite with some wild fruit he had procured on the margin of the desert, and then lay down to sleep. In less than a minute he was buried in the deepest slumber.

It seemed to him he had not been sleeping for more than an hour when the guide took him by the shoulder and shook him lightly.

Harry Urquhart looked about him.

"It is still dark," said he.

"The dawn comes," said the man, as if that clinched the matter once and for all.

"Have you not slept?" asked Harry.

"Does the hound sleep," said Fernando, with a grim smile, "with the fox in view? Remember, I have sworn to the saints."

When they had eaten such of the desert fruit as remained over from the previous day, they set forward on their journey, the guide leading as before.

They traversed valley after valley, the guide selecting the route, as it seemed, by some kind of natural instinct similar to that which will lead a cat to find its way across unknown country. Though during that morning they saw nothing of the Arab, Fernando was certain that the Black Dog was not many miles ahead. Every time they reached a hill-top, he screened his eyes with a hand and examined the surrounding country for signs of the fugitive, who, they were convinced, was making back to the Caves of Zoroaster.

They were returning to the hills of Maziriland by a route that lay far to the south of that of their former journey. The mountains here were not so high as those farther to the north. For all that, they were exceedingly desolate and rugged. They were in a land where nothing appeared to live. There were no villages; neither cattle nor sheep grazed upon the lowlands.

At midday the guide caught sight of the sheikh, still bearing towards the south-east. His white robes were conspicuous at a distance.

On the opposite side of the valley in which they found themselves, the man was hurrying forward along a ledge that did not appear to be more than a few feet across, that hung-as it were-between earth and sky. Beneath this ledge, the smooth face of a precipice dropped sheer to the depths of the valley; above, the same inaccessible cliff continued, rising upward to the clouds.

"If Cortes were only here," said the half-caste, "the task would be easy; the Black Dog would be ours."

"Where is your brother?" asked Harry.

"I am inclined to think he is somewhere toward the north. For the last three days the wind has been blowing from that direction. Had he been to the south he must have heard the shot I fired, in which case he would have caught us up."

"Perhaps," said Harry, "he returns by the way we came."

"It may be," said the guide. "Sooner or later, he will discover his mistake. Then he will come south; but he and Braid will be many miles in rear of us. If Cortes were with me now, I could capture the sheikh before sunset."

"How?"

"You see where he is," said the guide, pointing across the valley. "He walks on the brink of one precipice and at the foot of another. He can turn neither to the right nor to the left. He must either go straight on or else turn back. My brother can run faster than you or I. If he were with us, I would send him down the valley in all haste, to ascend the mountain-path in advance of the sheikh; whilst I would mount to the path at this end of the valley. Thus the Black Dog would be caught between us two."

Harry looked at the great, yawning abyss that arose before them like a mighty wall. The figure of Bayram was not more than two miles away. In mid-valley was a stream that flowed through a narrow strip of grassland, upon which it would be possible to run.

"I may not be able to run as fast as your brother," said he, turning to the guide, "but I think I can overtake the sheikh."

Fernando laughed.

"I think so too," said he. "As for me, though I can climb for many hours, I am no runner on the flat. Do you, therefore, set forth upon your way. At the foot of the valley you will see that the precipice ends; a spur of rock juts out. If you reach that place before the sheikh, you will be able to climb up to the path at the top of the precipice. There you will lie in wait for him. I will follow in his rear. He will be caught between two fires."

As there was little time to lose, Harry was not slow to obey the man's injunctions. Side by side they climbed down into the valley, and there they separated, Fernando going to the north, Harry Urquhart setting out in the opposite direction.

CHAPTER XXXII-Between Two Fires

In less than an hour Harry drew level with the Arab. The progress of the Black Dog was necessarily slow. In the first place, he still suffered from his wound; in the second place, the path he followed was in places so narrow as to be dangerous, and he was obliged to proceed with the utmost caution. Harry, on the other hand, had been able to run as fast as his legs could carry him by the side of the stream that rushed down from the mountains.

The boy paused for breath and looked about him. Though he and the sheikh were making for the same point, in regard to which they were level with one another, there was more than a mile between them. In other words, that was the distance that separated the precipice from the stream in mid-valley. Harry looked up and saw Fernando far in rear. He had already gained the path at the top of the abyss, and was following with all dispatch upon the heels of the fugitive.

The Black Dog stopped. His small white figure seemed to be crouching. Harry, with the aid of his field-glasses, tried to make out what the man was doing.

At that moment there came a quick, hissing sound within a fraction of an inch of the boy's ear, and a bullet buried itself deep in the ground not fifteen yards away.

Without a doubt, the sheikh now realized to the full the danger in which he stood. He saw that he was rapidly being cut off from all means of escape. There was nothing that could save him but his surety of aim, and at that distance it was no easy matter to hit a mark several hundred feet below him.

When a rifle is fired downward from a great height, what is known as the "trajectory", or flight, of the bullet is affected, and in consequence the line of sight is not wholly accurate. This may have been sufficient to account for the failure of the Arab's shot; but in any case, to put a bullet within an inch of the target at so great a range proved him a marksman of the greatest skill.

When he saw that he had missed he hurried on his way, hoping against hope to reach the spur in advance of Harry Urquhart.

The boy was determined that the fugitive should not escape. He cared little or nothing for the life of Bayram, but at all costs he meant, if possible, to recover the Sunstone. He was never able to forget that, all this time, von Hardenberg was shut up alive in the silent vault, in the very heart of the mountain.

Running as if his life depended on his efforts, he dashed down the valley. Three times the Black Dog fired, and each time the bullet flew within a hand's-breadth of its mark.

On gaining the spur, Harry clambered to the southern side, where he was out of sight of the fugitive, who was now too far away to fire. Slinging his rifle across his shoulder, hand over hand the boy climbed up the rocks, and at last gained the pathway which formed a little ledge, or terrace, upon the face of the great abyss.

He walked forward stealthily. On his right hand a rock arose, inaccessible and smooth as a plate of steel, whilst on the left it dropped sheer into the shadowy depths of the valley from which he had come. Far below him, the stream that he had followed looked like a little silver thread glittering in the sunlight.

He knew that he must find some kind of cover. If he came face to face with Black Dog on that narrow path he would have little chance of living. A rifle in the sheikh's hands, at a point-blank range, was more an implement of execution than a weapon of defence; and, besides, the Black Dog was known to be a man of prodigious strength.

As the boy went upon his way he looked forward eagerly, hoping to find some rock or boulder behind which he could hide and await the approach of the Arab. But the path was bare, not only of vegetation, but of stones and fragments of rock. It was as if some mighty hurricane had swept the mountain-side, brushing all obstacles from the narrow ledge, sweeping the place as clean as the pavement of a street.

Presently the path turned a sharp angle. The cliff stood folded back in the shape of the letter W. From the corner, Harry was able to see, not only the other extremity of the W, but also the smaller salient which formed the centre of the letter. It was then that the complete success of their enterprise was made apparent.

At the corner of the southern extremity was Harry, and at the northern stood the guide, his rifle in his hand. Between them the face of the precipice was folded back in two re-entrant angles. Everywhere the abyss was smooth and perpendicular, both above and below the pathway. It was possible to climb neither up nor down. Escape was beyond all question. And midway between Harry Urquhart and the half-caste guide, standing upright at the central angle, was Sheikh Bayram, the Black Dog of the Cameroons, like a great bird of prey perched above its eyrie. Whatever the issue of this business was to be, it was certain that for the present the fugitive was caught.

Neither was it possible for him to conceal himself. If he turned back, he was exposed to fire from the guide; if he went forward, he was covered by the rifle of Harry.

He stood motionless for some seconds, as if deliberating in his mind what was best to do. Then, with a slow and measured step, he walked towards the boy.

Harry waited till the man had come within twenty yards of him; then he raised his rifle to his shoulder and directed the sights full upon the Arab's heart. To his amazement, the Black Dog stood stock-still.